Sunday, September 7, 2008

Guest Contribution: Petey Hendrix 9/7 Edition

For this edition Petey addresses the answer to the question, "Of all the active major league general managers, whom is the biggest doucheberg?" The answer, obviously, since Steve Phillips is retired from the front office, is our old pal Bowden. See if you can correctly answer to the next portion of the Jim Bowden multiple choice quiz; to by successful, a person in his (Bowden's) position must have: a) frosted tips; b) a segue; c) a voracious appetite women who hung around the Reds locker room in 1985; d) all mentioned.

Six Degress of ‘Ol Leatherpants by Petey Hendrix

Let’s play a bit of Reds player movement history, taking a look at what surprising pedigrees we find when we delve into players past…ignoring cash considerations, let’s see what players remain from deals past…

Let’s start with Bill Bray, who’s damn good. We got him in “the trade” with the Washington Nationals in which Jim Bowden tried to unload two injured pitchers to “stick it” to the Reds: Austin Kearns, Felipe Lopez, and Ryan Wagner for Bill Bray, Daryl Thompson, Gary Majewski, Royce Clayton, and Brendan Harris. Good news gang: it looks like we stuck it to ‘Ol Leatherpants instead! Almost as much fun as screwing over Bowden, check out how we initially got Felipe Lopez: a 4-way trade in 2002 that had Reds then-GM Bowden giving up Elmer Dessens for Lopez. So one could say, in part, that we got currently-25-year-old Bill Bray for a now-retired Elmer Dessens, and screwed Jim Bowden in the process. Good times.

OK, let’s talk Nick Masset. Not great, but solid so far, and better than paying Griffey to stand in the batter’s box, admiring a double that he’ll stretch into a single. We got Masset and IF Danny Richar for Griffey. Griffey we got for Mike Cameron, Brett Tomko, and a couple of throw-ins. But Cameron we got straight up for Paul Konerko. And Konerko we got with Dennys Reyes for Jeff Shaw, whom we had signed as a free agent. So Nick Masset and Danny Richar are actually leftover by-products of Bowden lying to free-agent Shaw by trading him away after he signed for a hometown discount. Pretty cool. Even cooler if Bowden remains the Nationals’ GM, and Masset no-hits them next year.

Tired of JTM commercials? They couldn’t make Bronson Arroyo look worse in my eyes, nor on my grill. But he’s a bit of a parlay acquisition, himself: Bronson was acquired for Wily Mo Pena. Pena was acquired in a trade with the Yankees for Michael Coleman and Drew Henson. And the Reds got Coleman and Donnie Sadler from the Red Sox for Chris Stynes. And the Reds got Stynes and Jon Nunnally in 1997 for Scott Service and Hector Carrasco. I always liked Hector…whom we got in 1993 with Gary Scott in exchange for Chris Hammond. So Chris Hammond eventually got recycled into Bronson Arroyo. That’s solid.

Quirky: Scott Service pitched for 9 organizations over a 12-year major league career, yet was only traded once.

Try this one: We got Matt Belisle by trading away Kent Mercker…then we re-signed Mercker. Not great, but it earns an ironic smirk.

Also quirky: The Reds traded Paul O’Neill for Roberto Kelly. Worst trade the Reds ever made, according to some. Then they traded Kelly for Deion Sanders, whom they traded for Dave Burba, whom they traded for Sean Casey. Casey was unceremoniously traded for Dave Williams…which stunk. But we traded Williams for a righty reliever prospect named Robert Manual, who tore up AA this year at age 24 to the tune of a 1.37 ERA and 0.810 WHIP in 45 games. He’s now with AAA Louisville. Say what you will kids…it’s pretty tasty to still have a hot prospect in our systems as the result of a bad trade in 1992 for a player who is now 46 years old.

The Reds Rocket proudly documents the beauty of all which is, was, and will be Cincinnati Reds baseball. Through the use of advanced technology, information is collected and disseminated to the populace from the author's personal blimp hovering high above central Arizona.